


Duskflowers

by irlenolacroix



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexual Male Character, Falling In Love, Fluffy Ending, I love these two a lot, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, Repression, this is just a soft and silly little story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 13:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21495124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irlenolacroix/pseuds/irlenolacroix
Summary: Trencil had to say, of all the things he’d expected out of this evening, holding Jimothan’s hand on his back porch and overlooking his garden as the sun began to set was not one of them.***A commission I did for a friend that I’m really proud of!
Relationships: Jimothan Botch/Trencil Varnnia
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Duskflowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeroAngelo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeroAngelo/gifts).

> hey y’all! this little story is a commission i did for my friend nero (@leonleonhart on tumblr) and i’m honestly super proud of it! i love these two SO much and any of y’all who know my other work are fully aware that repressed jimothan is my JAM. hope you all like this, thank you all so much for reading! if you’re interested in buying a commission, please message me on my tumblr @winemomparker !!

Trencil had to say, of all the things he’d expected out of this evening, holding Jimothan’s hand on his back porch and overlooking his garden as the sun began to set was not one of them.

They’d planned a quiet evening. Not quite a date, but something adjacent, at least in Trencil’s mind. They’d exchanged too many lingering glances, too many just-suggestive-enough conversations, too many electrifying brushes of skin… There was too much between them for this to be a strictly platonic, no-subtext-whatsoever get-together. They’d…  _ kind of _ talked about it. Not in so many words, but little hints, enough for Trencil to feel safe flirting until Jimothan was comfortable enough to say something a little less ambiguous than “I’m sure you’re easy to fall in love with” and “Well,  _ somebody _ looks rather dashing this evening”. Perhaps they would talk about it tonight, perhaps they wouldn’t. Trencil was waiting for Jimothan to indicate that he was ready. As lovely a man as Jimothan was, he always seemed like he was putting up some sort of front, like he was guarding himself. Trencil understood. He didn’t want to push.

Of course, Trencil did still flirt. He couldn’t help himself.

They were on the couch, two and a half hours into a pretty full evening that had so far been occupied by dinner (surprisingly very tasty, owed in no small part to Jimothan’s new eyeglasses), a bottle of wine, and more of those just-too-long touches that would have Trencil overthinking his every move if he were any bit less put-together. The wineglasses had been eschewed in favor of just the bottle, and neither of them seemed to mind. They were both giggly at this point, a little more open than before, a little more willing to get close.

“You have never seen a duskflower bloom?” Trencil raised his eyebrows at Jimothan’s statement, leaning back a little on the couch. “You mean that?”

“Never in my life.” Another sip of wine. A curious tilt of the head. “Why d’you ask?”

A dumbfounded gaze. A breathy laugh. Trencil’s hand reaching out, moving to help Jimothan off the couch. “Come. It is almost time.”

“Hold on, hold on…” Jimothan reached to grab the neck of the wine bottle before taking Trencil’s outstretched hand with his free hand, pulling himself to his feet and nearly spilling the wine in the process. “All right, all right, I’m ready now. Show me. Almost time, you said, almost time for what?”

Trencil didn’t answer with words, not yet, at least. He simply pulled gently at Jimothan’s hand, nudging his head in the direction of his back porch. “Come.”

Jimothan tripped over his feet a little, but he obliged, following his friend out onto the back porch and placing the wine bottle on top of the dark wooden deck railing as soon as they got out there. He stood by Trencil, leaning up against the wood and gazing out over the garden, one which was mostly populated by a variety of flowers that seemed almost otherworldly to the average eye. Perhaps it was the vampirism, perhaps it was just the touch of a very green thumb, but Trencil’s flower garden was only rivaled by the garden that Habit had transformed the Habitat into after its dissolution. To put it shortly, it was beautiful. Jimothan had seen it before, seeing as Trencil was rather proud of it, but never quite like this. Never in dying evening light, holding hands with the gardener…

They were still holding hands, weren’t they?

“Do you see those buds?”

Trencil pointed with his free hand. Jimothan’s eyes eventually tore away from their joined hands for long enough to look in the direction Trencil was pointing in. Sure enough, there was a small section of the garden that appeared to just be a swathe of purple buds on stems, the petals not yet unfurled. “Yeah, I see them.”

“Keep your eyes on those.” Trencil’s gaze flicked between the flowers and Jimothan, betraying his own orders. “The sun should be just low enough…”

Silence passed between the two men. The sun set further. A petal began to uncurl.

“...So, do you bring all your dates out here?”

Trencil turned quickly to Jimothan, who was still looking at the flowers. The red tint on his face, though, seemed to be illuminated a bit too strongly by the sunset for it to be an entirely natural part of his face. “I beg your pardon?”

Jimothan cleared his throat and gave Trencil’s hand a tiny squeeze, not turning his head. “I mean, just kind of a silly question…”

“No.” Trencil cut Jimothan off, glancing away as he did so. “...No, I… I brought you back here because I care for you, and I wanted you to see the duskflowers bloom. It… It is too special an experience to allow you to miss it.”

Jimothan almost mumbled, but he forced himself to speak up. “You, uh… Hmm! I mean. You care for me… like, how, uh, when you say that… How do you mean?”

_ Is he truly so oblivious…? _ “Jimothan…” Trencil inched closer to his companion, letting go of his hand only to wrap a tentative arm around his waist. “Do you truly need to ask me that question?”

“I—I don’t know! I don’t, I haven’t really… Not since Parsley’s mother, you know, and I don’t like assuming…” Jimothan’s eyes remained fixed on the duskflowers. Petals were slowly loosening from the buds. He didn’t tense at Trencil’s touch, nor did he lean into it. He simply accepted it, letting himself get a little closer in return, his own free hand ghosting against the outside of Trencil’s thigh. “Didn’t wanna ask,” he mumbled.

“It is all right to ask.” Trencil leaned down a little bit, trying to catch Jimothan’s gaze. “I would rather like it if you asked. So that I know I am not making it all up in my head.”

“You seem too confident to worry about that kind of stuff.”

“I have spent millennia learning to mask my fears. You must, when you are a man such as I, or such as yourself.”

Jimothan didn’t say anything for a long moment. He did, however, finally look at Trencil. His eyes glowed, as they so often did, in the dying light. Trencil couldn’t help but swallow at the sensation of butterflies rising in his stomach.

“Uh… can I—?”

Jimothan was cut off with a pair of lips pressed to his. Trencil would have been embarrassed by his own eagerness if it was anybody else, but this was Jimothan. Jimothan was safe. Jimothan would understand. The initial lack of forethought faded into gentle warmth as the next few seconds went on, learning, figuring out curves and rhythms, a hand cupping a face and another brushing through hair that was just beginning to go silver around the roots.

When Trencil pulled back, he thought,  _ I love you. _ But there was still an unspoken boundary there, still something that he could sense Jimothan would be too nervous to cross for a little while. So he just smiled, and luckily for him, Jimothan smiled back.

When the two of them looked back at the duskflowers, they were a little bit more open than before. The petals hadn’t fully unfurled themselves, but they were beginning to spring to life in the tender warmth of the evening. Jimothan’s hand tapped Trencil’s, and they returned to holding hands. The sun set, and they were alone, comfortable, blooming.


End file.
